Membership

The Authors’ Club welcomes all those professionally concerned with literature: published writers, agents, publishers, editors, reviewers and academics.

The Authors’ Club is one of the oldest and most prestigious literary clubs in London. It was founded in 1891 by Walter Besant as a place where writers could meet, talk, and compare fortunes. The list of early members reads like an anthology of English literature: Oscar Wilde, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Jerome K Jerome, JM Barrie, Ford Madox Ford, HG Wells, Graham Greene…

These days we’ve broadened the membership profile to encompass “all people professionally concerned with literature” – publishers, agents, journalists, critics, editors, academics and screenwriters. The Club meets regularly at the impressive premises of the National Liberal Club just off Whitehall, for drinks, debates and monthly authors’ lunches.

If you’d like to consider joining, there are two ways open to you.

Full Membership of the Authors’ Club costs £798 per annum (just under £15.50 a week) and a once-off joining fee, which, as well as the full range of Authors’ Club benefits, entitles you to the whole range of NLC facilities and events including a seat at the annual Literary Dinner (where recent speakers have included Tom Holland, Margaret Drabble, Lord Ashdown) and an uncrowded spot at the New Year’s Eve Party, with the best view of the fireworks. You can make use of its bang-up-to-date business and office facilities, and will be welcome in all the NLC’s reciprocal clubs in 140 cities in the UK and around the world, from Beijing to Brussels, New Delhi to New York, and Santiago to Singapore.

Despite its name, membership of the National Liberal Club is not restricted to supporters of the Liberal Democrat Party; while its members include liberals with both a large and a small-l, the Club remains politically independent.

Alternatively if you are a published author, live outside the M25 or are under the age of 30, you can apply for Associate Membership, which costs £150 per annum (£12.50 a month) and entitles the holder to attend all Authors’ Clubs events, including debates, lunches and award nights. There will, however, be no access to the NLC or its programme outside Authors’ Club events.

If you wish to join, please email info@authorsclub.co.uk, telling us a little about yourself and how you meet the criteria for membership.